City reps challenge administration's agreement with developer

Elizabeth Kim

Updated 1:35 pm, Sunday, February 3, 2013

STAMFORD ­-- As developer Building and Land Technology awaits a key decision on a controversial plan to place a boatyard in Shippan, several elected officials are accusing the Pavia administration of improperly negotiating away potential rights to a city-owned parcel on which the project rests.

On Monday, the Zoning Board is expected to vote on whether to accept BLT's application to develop a boatyard at a 3.5-acre site it owns at 205 Magee Ave. The board had initially rejected the application because BLT's access to the water is blocked by an adjoining 4,200 square-foot strip of waterfront property owned by the city.

The parcel is part of an integral plan to move an existing boatyard on a 14-acre peninsula on Bateman Way that BLT demolished in the South End to Shippan to accommodate a state-backed $750 million project to build headquarters campus for hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates.

In hopes of moving the zoning process forward, Mayor Michael Pavia in December signed a letter of intent that grants BLT negotiation rights to the city-owned parcel.

Critics have attacked the agreement, arguing that the administration acted outside its authority. The city charter states that in addition to the mayor, the Planning Board, the Board of Finance and the Board of Representatives must approve any sale or lease of city-owned property.

"It's premature for the Zoning Board to review the application because the mayor's letter of intent should go through the mandatory Charter process," said Mary Uva, the Republican representative from Shippan, during a telephone interview on Thursday.

Uva was among the city representatives who pressed Joseph Capalbo, the city's director of legal affairs, on the validity and meaning of the letter of intent during a meeting of the Board of Representatives' land use committee on Tuesday night.

One section in particular of the letter of intent has raised eyebrows. Section 5b states: "The Applicant shall obtain final approval of such grant by City of Stamford Boards and Commissions as may be required by City charter, state law or as the Mayor of the City of Stamford, in his sole discretion deems necessary or appropriate."

Many have interpreted the final clause as allowing the mayor to be the sole approving authority of a potential land deal.

Capalbo, however, defended the wording, saying that the clause referring to the mayor's sole discretion was inserted to address scenarios, such as easements and license agreements, in which the Charter does not require approval of city boards.

"I wanted to make sure that the mayor can bring this before any board," he said, adding that any transfer of property rights involving the parcel would go before the Board of Representatives.

Since the release of the letter to the Zoning Board in January, Capalbo has maintained that the letter of intent does not grant any rights other than a commitment on the part of the city to negotiate with BLT in the future.

"We're not the only ones who misunderstood the content of the letter," she said.

At times, Capalbo seemed to struggle with providing convincing and detailed answers to the representatives' questions. Harry Day, the Republican chairman of the land use committee, often interjected on his behalf and repeatedly maintained that the letter of intent was "not ambiguous."

Day, however, later acknowledged, "It's a legal document and I don't fault non-lawyers for not understanding it."

The former attorney then added: "I understood it right away."

Further complicating the letter of intent has been the revelation that the parcel sought by BLT was included as part of a plan by former Mayor Dannel P. Malloy to create a park and waterfront walkway.

In 1999, the Board of Representatives approved a request by Malloy to buy the land for $500,000, of which $325,000 would be provided by a state open space grant.

Yet to date, the grant money has never been tapped, leaving the property vulnerable to development interests. Land conserved as open space cannot be used for commercial purposes.

Reached by phone last week, Ben Barnes, director of the state Office of Policy and Managment and Malloy's former director of operations, suggested that the failure to follow up on grant may have simply been an oversight during what was a busy era in the city's history.

"There were some very, very large development issues at the time," he said. "This may have just have been on the back burner."

The open space grant was awarded in 2001. According to the state, the city first attempted to access the money sometime in 2007, which matches up with the timeframe during which the park was completed. But state officials noticed several errors on the survey map of the park and asked the city to fix them. The process took more than a year; the corrected deed, which includes the revised map, was signed on Dec. 8, 2009.

Asked why the city took so long, Barnes speculated that it may have been very difficult for the department to hire a surveyor at the time because "Stamford was growing by leaps and bounds."

"I can't imagine it was a high priority," he said, adding that the amount was not significant within the context of the city's $400 million plus budget.

Barnes, who now serves as Gov. Malloy's budget director, confessed that he was "not proud" of the time it took to complete the map, but added, "I don't remember anything about it other than the normal to and fro of making it happen."

The city has not yet addressed the legal ramifications of transferring property rights for land that was approved for purchase as part of a park.

According to the city Charter, property consisting of 20,000 square feet or less that is owned by the city and used for park purposes may only be sold or transferred after written approval by the Mayor, the Planning Board, the Board of Finance and a two-thirds vote of the entire membership of the Board of Representatives.

Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Capalbo said he did not know that the city's land at 205 Magee Ave. was a park until that very afternoon. However, in October 2012, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection sent a letter to Pavia alerting him to the fact that the open space grant for 205 Magee Ave. was still unresolved.

After initially requesting that the deadline be pushed to Feb. 1, Pavia recently asked to further extend the date to June 1, according to Karen Cammarota, the city's grants officer. The state has recommended that the city revise the map of the park to exempt the parcel sought by BLT.

In a sign of a possible challenge to come, Day said he thought it was "debatable" as to whether the waterfront parcel was part of the park. He also questioned whether the property was officially recognized as a park.

But city documents suggest otherwise. Malloy's 1999 letter to the city boards clearly reference the creation of "park" as well as "an elaborate public walkway system" that would "provide a vital link between Czescik Marina and other City properties to the north." The purchase agreement contains several references to a "Shoreland Park." Finally, the deed to the property states that all three separate parcels, including the waterfront area, were conveyed to the city for "municipal and/or conservation purposes."

On May 19, 2008, Malloy held an official ribbon-cutting for the park. The event was covered by The Advocate, which ran the story under the headline "Stamford's newest park opens with no name." An accompanying photo shows Barnes and Freeman, who was at the time an attorney for Antares, the initial developer of Harbor Point.

Holding up the article before her fellow board members, Taylor remarked, "To me, if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck."

Capalbo left the meeting without responding to questions from a reporter. He did not respond to two phone messages left for him last week.

Tuesday's meeting, which was attended by Freeman, revealed the increasing level of distrust among elected officials toward the Harbor Point developer.

BLT's relationship with the city, which had always been somewhat tense, deteriorated last year after the company dismantled a the boatyard that had been considered a protected water-dependent use. Following months of asserting that they had no development plans, BLT joined Malloy at a press conference in August to announce a plan to turn the former boatyard site into an office headquarters for Westport-based Bridgewater Associates.

Soon after, the developer submitted the Shippan plan in hopes of providing a replacement for the boatyard in the South End.